As the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit gets underway in The Hague, Netherlands, world leaders and nuclear security experts will ponder the future of nuclear security in the Indian subcontinent. Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan both score poorly on several important indicators for the security of nuclear materials and their ability (or inability) to regulate their supply of both fissile material and weaponized nuclear systems is a continued cause of concern for nuclear security advocates.

Who is talking...the G-7 racist country club members..thru the diplomat..the paid tabloid.

Click to expand...

India's failure due to European racism. Yup, that'll play well here.

Indiaâ€™s low score on the NTI Security Index is mostly due to a series of bureaucratic failures and delays. India remains a relative newcomer to the community of normal nuclear weapon states. Despite the fact that India never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its landmark 2006 civil nuclear cooperation deal with the United States and its eventual receipt of a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 made it the first nuclear weapon state outside of the NPT framework to engage in civil nuclear commerce.

Indiaâ€™s nuclear security problems are myriad. Despite having excellent multilateral compliance, including fully implementing UN Security Council resolution 1540, poor regulations and laws that merely suggest but do not require oversight keep Indiaâ€™s nuclear security provisions below optimal levels. Two years ago, at the last Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, India pledged to establish an independent regulatory agency for nuclear material security but has failed to do so. Other major shortcomings for India include a failure to hedge against insider threats to nuclear materials and protect materials during transport. While Indiaâ€™s threat environment is far less dangerous than Pakistanâ€™s, terrorist groups have plotted to acquire nuclear materials in India.

This report sound BS to me.
Who the hell is Netherlands???
They don't have nukes and they don't have the hostile neighborhood that India is in.
So they should shut up.
No terrorista ever will lay his hands on Indian nuke.
Don't know and don't care about amreeki and nether nukes.

Air Force general in charge of nuclear weapons removed for lack of trust: defense officials

A top general in charge of the U.S. Air Force's arsenal of nuclear ballistic missiles has been relieved of his command due to loss of trust, defense officials told NBC News.

Air Force officials said Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was fired for â€œpersonal misbehaviorâ€ while on temporary duty at an unspecified location outside his usual command. The officials would not describe the behavior, other than to say that it did not involve any sexual improprieties, drug use, gambling, or criminal conduct.

Second-in-command of the country's nuclear arsenal is suspended as he is investigated for GAMBLING

The No. 2 officer at the military command in charge of all U.S. nuclear war-fighting forces has been suspended and is under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Command for issues related to gambling, officials said Saturday.

The highly unusual action against a high-ranking officer at U.S. Strategic Command was made more than three weeks ago but not publicly announced.

Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, the commander of Strategic Command, suspended the deputy commander, Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, from his duties on Sept. 3.
He is still assigned to the command but is prohibited from performing duties related to nuclear weapons and other issues requiring a security clearance, she said.

This report sound BS to me.Who the hell is Netherlands???
They don't have nukes and they don't have the hostile neighborhood that India is in.
So they should shut up.
No terrorists ever will lay his hands on Indian nuke.
Don't know and don't care about amreeki and nether nukes.

Click to expand...

The 2014 Nuclear Security Summit is being held in the Hague, which is in the Netherlands.

Why do you want to be so profoundly ignorant?

No, the real question is, why is the profound ignorance displayed by you and a few others tolerated by DFI?

Interesting article. Will you please share how the nuclear security trustworthiness factor is decided?

Click to expand...

From the article:

The Nuclear Threat Initiativeâ€˜s 2014 Security Index, â€œa unique public assessment of nuclear materials security conditions in 176 countries, developed with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU),â€ scored both India and Pakistan rather poorly for nuclear material security. The NTIâ€™s ranking examines nuclear material security indicators among the 25 countries known to possess weapons-usable nuclear material and this yearâ€™s ranking put India in 23rd place and Pakistan in the 22nd place. Only Iran and North Korea â€” two nations largely ostracized by the international community for their nuclear programs â€” scored lower. Despite its higher internal instability, Pakistan came out ahead of India on the NTI 2014 Security Index.

In fact I've been discussing why India is not more transparent and very secretive about our nuclear program. As we aspire to be a "great nation" we will have to act like one. We need to have process in place where we declare our stockpile (civil), our locations (civil) etc and I also say that we should come to a conclusion of what minimum credible deterrence means and put a number to it under the current threat perception and not give a vague we will respond with unacceptable damage thing. This threat perception should be reviewed say every two years as we build our stockpile. If we declare the number of warheads, the type and their yields, the enemy will also feel "assured" and "confident" of our program and we can build confidence building measures to reduce chance of nuclear conflict.

And about the nuclear trust related incidents of US military? One key figure in charge of nuclear facilities is relieved of command due to "trust and safety" issues and other suspended for gambling certainly puts nuclear security at risk.

Where is the criticism over that since it relates to key areas of the report?

More specifically, this key area from the "report" :

ADDRESSING A SHARED GLOBAL THREAT
Because any catastrophe involving a nuclear weapon
would be global in scope, countries with weapons-usable
nuclear materials have a responsibility to secure all those
materials and to provide assurances to others that build
confidence in the effectiveness of their security

In fact I've been discussing why India is not more transparent and very secretive about our nuclear program. As we aspire to be a "great nation" we will have to act like one. We need to have process in place where we declare our stockpile (civil), our locations (civil) etc and I also say that we should come to a conclusion of what minimum credible deterrence means and put a number to it under the current threat perception and not give a vague we will respond with unacceptable damage thing. This threat perception should be reviewed say every two years as we build our stockpile. If we declare the number of warheads, the type and their yields, the enemy will also feel "assured" and "confident" of our program and we can build confidence building measures to reduce chance of nuclear conflict.

Click to expand...

Even better would be to keep a nuclear launch code as "00000000" which the US did for so many years.

This is the breakdown for US nuclear security scorecard, an area of interest being considered here is "Insider Threat Prevention".

Considering the recent personnel infractions who were in charge of US nuclear arsenal, what seems interesting is that all of areas related to that in the scorecard is 3 (which I assume is highest trustworthiness factor for vetting personnel).

If someone can explain how this is calculated and clarify the whole scoring process, it would be great.

While accountability and detailed analysis may be useful to examine pain points due to such reports, to think that such reports are the gospel of nuclear security is incorrect.

Many nations who supposedly are superior in "nuclear practices" did invade countries where no WMDs were found, tried to block nuclear programs of developing nations (CTBT anyone?) and so on.

So to assume that certain countries when score poorly means they really suck is plain wrong considering the credibility of nations who back such reports .

And about the nuclear trust related incidents of US military? One key figure in charge of nuclear facilities is relieved of command due to "trust and safety" issues and other suspended for gambling certainly puts nuclear security at risk.

Where is the criticism over that since it relates to key areas of the report?

Click to expand...

What I am suggesting is that the actions you mention (the relief from command and suspension) are indicators that nuclear security is taken seriously by those responsible for the oversight of US nuclear facilities.